


Ignore It, Son

by ollifree



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, rated t for off-screen implied infanticide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26657926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ollifree/pseuds/ollifree
Summary: When Caedan Amell was seventeen, the Circle received a baffling new member.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Ignore It, Son

**Author's Note:**

> I've reached the point where I'm pulling titles from songs. "Everything Moves" by Bronze Radio Return, which is *the* song on Caedan's playlist.

“First Enchant—oh?” Caedan looked around the empty office before turning to the Templar on duty and pointing to Irving's chair.

“New mage today.”

Caedan drummed his fingers on his hips, then shrugged and left. A few moments with the Knight-Commander in the company of other mages was better than being around any other Templar alone.

He heard the rumble of the First Enchanter's voice before he was able to discern any words. “We simply don’t have the resources to…” Caedan sidled into view, and it was a decade of not letting Templars gauge anything from his expression that stopped his jaw from dropping. The new mage, such as they were, was hardly old enough to hold up their own head.

“Did you make a _mistake_?”

Irving and Greagoir both looked to him at his outburst. "Dear boy—" Irving began.

"Look at _you_!" Caedan cooed to the infant, whisking them out of Irving's arms. "Did you scare the big, bad Templars all by yourself?" Tucking them into the crook of an arm, Caedan set small jolts of electricity dancing between his fingers. "Ah ah," he chided softly when the babe reached for the sparks with a gurgling laugh. “Not until you can control your own.” Tickling the infant under their chin, Caedan asked Irving, "Don't children of apostates go to the Chantry?" He didn't recall anyone being pregnant recently.

“Usually,” Irving conceded, “but the parents in this case were not apostates.”

“This _is_ the mage? What...what did they do? Can magic even manifest that young?”

Irving steadied his flow of questions with a motioning hand. “The Templars conducted tests to be sure before they brought the infant to us.”

The Knight-Commander, sounding done with the conversation, ordered, “Give it here, Amell.”

Caedan’s face scrunched in disbelief when he gazed down at the infant. “How? Did— _phh_. Did you set them on fire? Did you?”

“ _Give it here, Amell!_ ”

He jolted at the severity of the Knight-Commander’s tone. The infant started to fuss, and then cry in earnest when Caedan relinquished them to Greagoir. Caedan’s voice was hoarse when he told the Knight-Commander, “You’re holding them wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re—You need to support their head.”

Greagoir glanced down at them, his face a mix of annoyance and dislike. As he adjusted his hold, Irving stepped closer to Caedan and set a hand on his shoulder. Caedan’s eyes flicked over when the familiar gesture pained him. Irving’s knuckles were white.

“You two hold your private lesson this time of day?” Greagoir’s question wasn’t much of an inquiry. Still, Caedan answered.

“Yes, Knight-Commander.”

“Get to them, then.”

Irving nodded, and led Caedan off.

* * *

“They’re...small.”

“Oh, they’re _darling_.” Petra cooed, while Surana looked decidedly uncomfortable being so close to the babe. The infant wasn’t sleeping in the apprentice quarters, but as they were by all technicalities an apprentice, that was where they spent their days. Looking up from them, Petra invited, “Are you sure you don’t want to hold them? I think they like you.”

As she said it, the infant turned its head and gurgled happily at Caedan. He grinned at Petra. “I’m fine.”

Jowan leaned against him. “Can we _go_ ,then?”

Surana extracted herself from the group surrounding the oddity and joined them. “ _I’ll_ go. Coming?”

Caedan eyed the group a tad longer, but followed Surana and Jowan out into the hall. “I think I got hives,” Surana told Jowan. “Do my arms look red?”

The curved halls of the Tower served as an amplifier for voices. Mages and Templars avoided the worst of it by keeping conversations to the many rooms of the Tower, or by measuring how loud their voices were if they had to talk in the halls. There was no teaching this to the infant. Their cries echoed throughout whichever floor they were on: disrupting lessons and sleep until they were quieted.

“Can someone shut that thing up?” One of the older apprentices demanded one night, several hours after lights-out.

Several groans and shouts of varying ranges of agreement answered.

“The Templars’ll sort it out.

“I can’t sleep like this!”

“ _You’re_ not helping.”

“Maybe one of us should check…”

“Go shut it up yourself, Yoseph, it’ll finally be quiet in here!” Surana, who usually ignored late night squabbles, snapped at the original offender.

Caedan rolled on his side and placed a hand over his ear to block the infant’s screams just before the door opened. From the shadows, he guessed two of them.

“ _Lights-out_ means _quiet_!” One of the Templars at the door ordered. A muted murmuring of apologies scattered through the room.

“But, the…” Yoseph silenced himself at the Templar’s glare.

“The Knight-Commander is dealing with it. All of you, back to bed.”

No one had gotten out of their bunks, but the order was taken seriously. Those who had sat up to join in the fighting lay back down, and even those who hadn’t gotten involved shifted in their beds.

The screams of the infant continued after the Templars left until, mid-cry, they were silenced. The air seemed to be gone from the apprentice quarters. As though everyone held their breaths. Caedan clasped his hand more firmly over his ear and willed himself to sleep.

“It’s...very quiet,” Petra commented the following morning. A few mutters of agreement answered her. No one had left for breakfast after the Knight-Lieutenant’s morning roll call, and no one had come for the apprentices when they didn’t show up for lessons.

Surana placed a hand on Caedan’s shoulder and nodded at the door. Jowan was waiting for them.

The three were silent as they walked down the corridor. Surana was the one to notice Irving approaching, and she pulled the other two aside.

“Good morning, First Enchanter,” the trio said automatically.

“Hello, you three. Amell, you would not mind postponing our lesson until tomorrow? The Knight-Commander has a few matters he would like to discuss.”

“Not at all,” Caedan smiled. “Please, take as long as you need.”


End file.
